Sourdough Babka

My wild yeast is very unpredictable. Sometimes I have beautifully risen loaves and other times I wonder if I am just wasting flour and time. This month's Sourdough Surprises challenge was babka. There was no doubt that I was going to make this amazing combination of a brioche-like dough and whatever filling I desired. I made a brioche with commercial yeast recently and I loved it! However, could my wild yeast handle it?


For my babka, I modified two recipes - a sourdough brioche and Smitten Kitchen's babka. I used less eggs than called for in the sourdough brioche because I worried about having an extremely sticky dough that I would be unable to roll. Smitten Kitchen's babka looks so amazing. I didn't use as much chocolate as she did though because I was busy eating all the chocolate before baking time. I only slightly regret that. I also crushed my chocolate a bit too much. Next time I won't. Yes, there will be a next time. I also sprinkled in some rummy raisins.

Apparently, I did not need to worry about my yeast this time. It was by far the most beautifully risen sourdough loaf I have ever made. I don't know what made the difference but I hope to recreate this with my loaf for next week.

It really doesn't look like I have a lot of chocolate in here. But even though I did eat a lot of it, I swear that I did put a decent amount in! You can better see the amount of chocolate when the bread is sliced lengthwise. It was great having this loaf throughout the week and actually with the reduced chocolate, it made it perfect for an everyday bread. And I ate it everyday sometimes several times per day. I managed to save some to make french toast on Saturday morning.

I had this crazy idea to put the french toast in the waffle iron. A quick Google search said I was not alone in this line of thought. So there you have it! My sourdough babka. Thanks Sourdough Surprises for this month's challenge!